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Aspect of the Hare

Roleplaying, Hunterisms, Linux, and Various Other Shenanigans...

Hello, I'm Pike. *waves* I'm a Linux-using geekgirl who is madly in love with the hunter class in World of Warcraft. Oh, and exploring the vast world and lore that Blizzard made. ...but mostly the hunter class.

It has been said by others that I am a "good hunter", but I by no means consider myself to be an ultimate expert. I just like to teach and tell stories, and share what I do know with others. Hence, this blog.

Pull up a chair and make yourself at home-- I've got Warp Burgers in the fridge and Kibler's Bits for your pets.

Copyright

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Good Hunters go to Heaven, Except They Don't Die

So I had the rather, um, unique experience yesterday of surviving a wipe. Basically it goes like this:

We were in Black Morass, which none of us had ever done before. This is a very... unusual instance. It consists of you running around killing bosses and other non-boss big elites, while trying to prevent wave after wave of mob from getting to Medivh. Very intense.

Anyways, we were about halfway through and doing okay, for it being everyone's first try. I was on add-duty, so while everybody else focused on the elites I got to run around with Track Dragonkin up, making sure nobody was trying to sneak past. Anyways to make a long story short, we were busy on one of the bosses and then it happened. Tank died. Warlock died. Rogue died. Healer died. ...hunter and pet are running around attacking the growing number of adds. I was fully expecting to die any second, but... nope. You see, I hadn't touched the boss at all because I'd been focusing on adds. So I had no threat when it came to him, so he wasn't touching me.

Furthermore, the adds weren't mobbing me because they were all focused on Medivh. I was able to run around and pick them off one at a time-- or at least make a futile attempt to do so before Medivh's shield fell.

Medivh's shield was, in fact, falling faster and faster and suddenly I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be trying. Maybe I should die while his shield was still up... maybe then we wouldn't have to start over?

I said in party chat: "Hey guys, I'm still alive".

Party Chat: "..."

Me: "Am I supposed to die?"

Party: "Is Medivh's shield falling?"

Me: "Yeah"

Party Chat: "Yeah... maybe dying would be a good idea..."

Okay, suicide. I can do that easily enough. I ran up to the boss they were fighting before and fired an arrow at him. Boss yells something out and charges at me and hits me for a lot of HP, but I was still hanging in there. I braced myself for the final blow...

And then he disappeared.

Medivh's shield had fallen and so all the bad guys had disappeared.

Everyone had wiped and I'd ran up and shot an elite dragon boss in the face and yet my pet and I were still standing, battered, but alive.

Let me tell ya, I never thought I'd see the day where I could say that.

As for the instance, we tried a few more times unsuccessfully (the instance does in fact reset) and then decided we would call it a night and come back later when we needed the Kara key and when our tank was better geared. (Very good tank... needs better gear.)

I think it's starting to turn into a joke among my guildies that I have this mysterious tendency to survive wipes. I am perfectly fine with that reputation.

15 comments:

Awesome! I ran BM (aka dark portal) once and only once to get my kara deal done and over with. Gimme my key I says! Go into BM they says. Myself, 2 awesome guildmates (70s) and 2 godawful puggers (lock and hunter). We could have possibly three man'd it since that's kind of what we did. The hunter ignored all the adds and just dps'd...fine...i was to dps as well. The lock was on adds. he said ok to this. he noted what he was to do...yet every add made it to Medivh. Time and time again I was the only one going to kill them off. The hunter stuck to autoshoot and probably went afk. the lock thought drain life was the ultimate dps thing to do on the elite (again, while ignoring the adds).

*sigh*

I'm just glad my guildmates were there. They made the success possible. /cheers to them

...UNTIL you complete it for the first time, your group/guild gets it, and you suddenly realise how great it is to farm. Trust me, you hate it now, but very soon you'll love it.

Some great tips for BM:

1. Memorise the spawn points for the portals (there's only 4) and have everyone in your group keep an eye out, and mark the portal on the minimap so people can see where to run for.

2. Hang well back - the portal minibosses have a fairly large aggro radius and I've seen them go for an over-eager DPS many times. Let your tank charge on in and focus on creating dragonkin stains on the scenery.

3. Save your beacons. Don't use any on the first 11 portals. Use one (and only one) on the adds that spawn with the 2nd boss when he is at low health (with practise, you won't even need that one). Then, have your tank tank the minibosses on the final portals about 10 feet in front of the portal, directly in line with Medivh. Use one beacon on each portal leading up to the final boss. With a little bit of luck, the friendly dragon will take out the adds for you as well as unleashing shedloads of DPS on the miniboss. This allows you to go into the final fight with better health and mana.

4. Aeonus (the final boss) is one of the few mobs that cann (apparently) have Tranquilising Shot used on them. I;'ve never got it to work though :(

5. As a BM hunter, hitting Bestial Wrath at the right moment allows you to sail right through Aeonus' time stop thing.

Black Morass is one of the defining hunter instances in TBC. We used to have Drakk in UBRS for our kiting abilities, but who does UBRS anymore... except for a few friends of mine who have an unhealthy fascination with the old content and gear.

If you can master add control in BM, you're well on your way to über hunterdom!

I have memorized the paths the adds will take and always have a snake trap ready for those pesky dragonling 3 packs and my ravager is always ready for the larger dudes.

Trust me... you want to get this down. The only blue item I have left equipped is the trinket Aeonus drops and I'm only getting rid of that once Gruul is kind enough to drop his trinket.

I love the site Pike. I just found it from BRK who was bragging about his cool new toon avatar. He made us all jealous and mentioned that if we dig deep in our pockets we may be able to talk you into doing others :)

Either way, great site, keep up the good work....

On the note of BM.. yea, BM rocks once you get it. If you wipe you can make it back in to finish with a reset as long as you make it before the shield is down. I have done it. However, it has been many patches ago and this may have changed :)

Yeah I remember BM it seemed to be the bane of my existence for a while. I'm not sure why but it seemed all my attempts with other failed and that the first time we got to the last boss the healer lagged and we all wiped. Almost got back in time to start again but healer got DCed. It was a whole month before a group of my friends who were already keyed decided to help me finish it off.

Though I know what you go through with dealing with the adds. It can be a bit challenging but overall not too difficult. My main problem was the group of three dragonlings as it was those ones that slowed me down more than anything.

@pelides I hadn't thought of using Snake Trap against those three pack dragonlings as I didn't think it'd be too effective but I'll give it a shot.

Yeah, BM is a little weird like that. It's also probably the most fun 5-man there is. No pulling, no strats, really, just kill ASAP, drink when you can.

I hate healing it though unless I'm with my guild's MT because every other tank doesn't seem to remember to kite the 2nd boss around a bit, else his debuff stacks too high and I can't heal them very well, and they die.

At least a priest or shaman in the group could dispell the boss' buff, which makes the fight trivial (I like to spellsteal it too on the mage, then I get to run with superspeed for a few seconds, heh)